Nuclear Family: A Tragicomic Novel in Letters

From filmmaker and New Yorker contributor Susanna Fogel comes a comedic novel about a fractured family of New England Jews and their discontents, over the course of three decades. Told entirely in letters to a heroine we never meet, we get to know the Fellers through their check-ins with Julie: their thank-you notes, letters of condolence, family gossip, and good old-fashioned familial passive-aggression.

Together, their missives - some sardonic, others absurd, others heartbreaking - weave a tapestry of a very modern family trying (and often failing) to show one another they care.

The titular "Nuclear Family" includes, among many others:

• Julie's father, a former child prodigy who has recently taken up haiku writing
• His traditional Chinese second wife, who FedExes her stepdaughter towns from Filene's Basement to help her attract a suitor
• Julie's mother, a therapist who may be in love with her rabbi
• Julie's sister, who has eschewed higher education in favor of a stockpile of guns and a plot of land in Arizona